Conventional approaches for sharing files between computing devices and/or storage repositories include the following:
One approach is storing the files on a cloud computing system and retrieving the files from the cloud computing system when needed. The major drawbacks of such an approach include extranet access/availability, extranet bandwidth limitation, which is slow if compared with local intranet copy, and the need of an Internet connection.
A second approach is a “passport” mouse with a removable or resident memory attached to it (e.g. flash memory): the mouse stores a file from the source device to itself and then the file is copied to the destination device from the mouse's memory. This process has different drawbacks: two copies of the same file in place of one (source→destination), file size (to move) subject to mouse memory space and a late pairing process between the devices and the passport mouse (the mouse needs to be detached from the source and attached to the destination).
A third approach is installing a Master (or server) component on a device (e.g. a PC in the network) and a Slave (or client) component on each device it wants to share the pointer with. This approach has different drawbacks including: since it is a master-slave approach and not a peer-to-peer approach, the group can share the pointer (and the files) only if the Master device (e.g., the PC) is available and, often, only “from” the Master device. Furthermore, if there was a need to transfer a file between two Slaves devices, it first requires that the file be moved from the source Slave device to the Master, and then a move from the Master to the destination Slave device needs to be carried out.
Other conventional “solutions” are based on removable devices that require that the device (e.g., mouse, pen drive, external HDD) be removed from the source and plugged in the destination device, which implies a requirement of physical operation close to the devices that compromises the smooth behavior of the sharing operation.
Accordingly, there is a continued need for a system and method for solving the above referenced problems associated with conventional approaches for sharing files between computing devices and/or storage repositories.